Pornography Addiction EXPERT Shares Top Relapse Prevention Strategies

Hey there everybody, and welcome to this video on early relapse prevention for pornography addiction. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. In this video, we're going to explore strategies to use in early relapse prevention. What is early relapse prevention? Well, you're going to learn a lot of skills and tools as you go through the recovery process. But it is important to be able to have some basic skills and tools you can use now to help you not use now. Not using is not the same as recovery. People can white knuckle it for a long time, but not using. And pretty much what you're going to be doing for the beginning is white knuckling it, holding on until you can start actually developing recovery and your body starts to heal. These tools can help you through that process. During this first phase of recovery, you are stopping problematic use physically. Your dopamine and other hormones and neurochemicals are likely to be inadequate. You have been flooding your brain with these chemicals. It's gotten used to the flood. Now you're going, nah, not going to flood it anymore. Deal with what you got. And the body, it takes time for the body to get the message and then to adjust to it. So initially you're going to feel bad, for lack of a better word. Your symptoms during withdrawal can include reduced energy, sleep problems, restlessness, increased or decreased sex drive, moodiness and cravings. These symptoms will pass. There may be a temptation to self medicate with other addictive behaviors like alcohol or even food. Don't do it. Recognize if you start feeling cravings for junk food, for example, that's your body going, I want more dopamine. And junk food is a way to get a little bit. It pales in comparison to sex and porn, don't get me wrong. But the body is desperate at this point and it'll take any hit it can get from anywhere. Nicotine, alcohol, harder drugs, all of those can do the same thing. They can help increase the levels of those neurotransmitters, but it also prevents the healing of your brain. It prevents the remodeling of those neuro circuits. So you really don't want to substitute one addiction for another. Instead of monitoring the symptom, I encourage people to monitor the solution. So in, instead of, instead of monitoring my irritability, I'm going to monitor my mood, how, how good I felt, how happy I was. It's a slight semantic difference, but it helps you focus on progress forward instead of staying stuck on what's wrong. So how well did you Sleep, how is your energy or how is your mood? And you can use what we call a Likert scale. And I, I anchor mine. So you are clearly aware of what each number means. Number one is awful. Number two is eh, okay. Number three is good. And number four is ah, great, I slept like a baby. Okay. So you can see that there are qualitative differences in these and that will help you more accurately rate yourself. In the first two weeks of recovery, expect each one to average about a 1.25. So generally you're going to be a 1 or a 2 every single day. And then when you take that and divide by seven, you end up with something around 1.25. That's the way it's going to be. And that's not unexpected. It will get better. And that's why you monitor. So you can see it move from 1.25 to 1.5. Yeah, it's not a huge move, but it's a little better. You can see it move all the way up to where you're at. A two and woohoo. There's one day you got a three in there. That's awesome. What you're looking for is baby steps, incremental improvement to let you know that your brain is rebuilding. After a hurricane, all the houses that were built and wiped out are going to have to be rebuilt. They weren't built in a week, they're not going to be rebuilt in a week. It's going to take time. A reasonable goal for the end of the first month of early recovery is an average of 1.54 for your most notable symptoms. And I know that doesn't sound great. However, I want to be honest with you about what my experience has been over the past 20 some odd years. Working with people. After the first 30 days, most people are not feeling great. So it's important to recognize that triggers are things that lead to a thought, feeling or behavior. For example, computers, lingerie or explicit television are triggers for porn use. They trigger the thought of hey, maybe I could go watch porn. Your kids being in the gym, a picture of your mom, your vision board for your rich and meaningful life. Hopefully these trigger something else. So triggers can be destructive, they can trigger the behavior you're trying to get get away from, or constructive. They can trigger the desire for recovery. They can trigger the desire to engage in the behaviors you need to to recover and move toward that rich and meaningful life. Now vulnerabilities are things that make it harder to effectively deal with the stress, harder to effectively deal with Triggers. For example, when I'm sick, especially if I'm sick and tired, oh boy, I'm vulnerable. And what do I mean by that? I mean things that normally I'd be able to let roll off my back just send me into a fury. When I am sick and exhausted, I am more vulnerable to being having my anger triggered when I am sick and exhausted. You will have your own vulnerabilities, but it's important to recognize what things make you more vulnerable to being triggered. To use porn or think about porn. It's important to remember that relapse prevention is not being cured. As I said before, early relapse prevention, these are just tools to help you get through that white knuckle place where you are admitting that your life has become unmanageable and you need to make a change. Relapse prevention is a plan to help you cope with distress, avoid using, and choose different behaviors. Eventually this will become more second nature to you. But this initial relapse prevention plan is crucial to help you succeed through one of the hardest times of the recovery process. In recovery from addiction, mood issues, or even health problems, it is essential to heal the stress response by reducing all types of stress. So in your addiction, and this includes porn addiction, the stress response system, the HPA axis, became damaged, got out of sync, if you will, and it's going to have to heal, it's going to have to be recalibrated. And in order for the workers to recalibrate it, you've got to let it calm down a little bit. You've got to let it cool down and heal so they can get in there and do some work. Now, this doesn't mean you can avoid all types of stress all the time. Most of us can't go lay on a beach in Cabo or something for two months while our brain remodels. That's just not realistic. But it's important to reduce as many unnecessary stressors as possible. The same thing is true when you've got mood issues. That HPA axis is often uncalibrated and needs to be recalibrated. And health problems. When your body, when your brain recognizes that there's a problem in your body factory, it sets off that stress response and it says, hey, we need to send workers out to try to fix this. And that's when you start getting inflammation as well as repair. But in all three addiction, mental health issues, and physical health issues, the HPA axis or the stress response system is going to have to be recalibrated, which means You've got to reduce unnecessary stress on it so the workers can fix it. You need to increase awareness of and strategies to deal with negative triggers and vulnerabilities. If you know that so and so at work, it gets on your very last nerve. Even if it doesn't trigger the desire to use porn, if they get on your very last nerve, that is going to cause that stress response to kick off. We don't want to do that unless we have to. So how can you cope with so and so so they don't set you off? One suggestion I would have is just repeat to yourself, is this person worth my energy that I could use to move toward my rich and meaningful life? Is that responding to this person really worth my energy? And I think a lot of times you're going to say no, but. And you need to become more aware of your vulnerabilities. As I mentioned just very shortly ago. If you tend to be more vulnerable when you're sick, when you're tired, when you're hungry, how can you prevent those things as much as possible and when they do happen? Because they will. You will get sick, you will get tired, you will get hungry at times. How can you manage it so it doesn't lead to problems, so it doesn't cause you to set off that HPA axis in response to triggers? For example, when I'm tired and sick, for example, and I know I'm irritable, I will come to work, I will let people know, hey, I'm just, I'm in a mood today, so I'm going to shut my door. That prevents people from coming in and bothering me with nonsense that might be triggering. And you can do that with your family too. You can say, hey y', all, you know, I'm, I'm feeling irritable or I've got a headache or whatever you want to say. I need some quiet time. Doesn't have to do with you. I just, I need some time because I'm feeling kind of icky and kids, even kids understand that. Maintain a regular schedule. Don't be going to sleep at 2am, then 8pm and taking two hour naps during the day, that will really wreak havoc with your system and it will slow down remarkably the recovery process. So maintain a semi regular schedule. I mean, if you normally go to bed every night at 10 and one night you stay up till 12 because you're, you know, playing cards with friends or something, sure, okay, that's not a big deal. Just don't make a habit of it. You Know that's, that's a one off. If you will address any sleep hygiene issues. Being in bed for eight hours doesn't mean you're getting good quality sleep. And in order for your brain to heal itself, you need that quality sleep. Additionally, if you don't get that quality sleep, guess what's going to be triggered? That stress response. Your brain's going to say, hey, I don't want you to feel sleepy when you're driving or running away from that hungry lion. So I'm going to give you a little extra oomph for the day. And that is those excitatory neurochemicals that are, that had caused the damage during your addiction. We want to try to avoid that. Eat a healthy diet to give your factory the materials it needs to repair itself. And I know I've said this in other videos, but it bears repeating because people too often think that all they've got to do is stop using and, you know, change their attitude and that's it. That's not it. Most people who have physical health, mental health or addiction issues also have some really crappy physical health habits. And that makes the body factory unhealthy at best, inefficient, and maybe downright broken, which means you're going to have a hard time achieving full recovery. Now, in terms of orgasm, I get asked about this a lot. It's recommended to go on a two week, what I call dopamine detox. Trying to stay away from orgasm, from porn, from anything that is uber pleasurable. Don't go skydiving right now. This is not the time. Give your brain two weeks to just really rest as much as possible. Then limit releases to no more than two per week and only with a partner. When aroused by that partner, it's important to start rewiring the synapses and remember neurons that fire together, wire together. So if you're still getting aroused by porn, then it's going to, then you're going to continue to have difficulty getting aroused in real life. So you need to start working toward only having sexual releases when you are aroused by a partner and with that partner. If there is no partner, and I know that is a reality for a lot of you, if there is no partner, imagining an in real life partner while masturbating may be an option. It's not ideal because a lot of people who go down this route have difficulty stopping. And it's important when you're doing it not to envision a porn video you watched. It's important to really think about that person, somebody in real life, at least start making that IRL connection instead of the porn connection. Limiting and prohibiting access. So you are not using all the time supervision when you're at home, staying in the same room as other people. When you're at the gym and you're in the locker room, you're not going to be doing that. So that's another time what you're looking for. You're going to ask yourself, where are places and what are times when I am not tempted or I'm not able to engage in this behavior. So spending time at the gym, spending time around other people at home, spending time at work, all those things. When you're in the shower, you may choose to wear swim trunks. It's not going to do everything, but it can help some. And ideally stand with your back to the shower so you're not getting stimulation on your genitals. Some people opt for chastity devices, and if you do, my recommendation is a metal one because the metal ones prevent you from some of the workarounds that are available. And I'm not going to tell you about those workarounds because you don't need that information. But the metal ones make it a lot more unpleasant. If you wear a chastity device, you may have a key holder, whether that's a friend who is willing to hold this key for you or a partner who's willing to hold the key for you and only give it to you when you know. At certain times, if you don't have a key holder, you can put it in an ice block, and I mean a big ice block, not just a little ice cube that'll melt in an hour. Put it in a. You get a 32 ounce glass, a big gulp and fill it with water and then attach the key to a string and dangle it down in there about halfway. So it takes a long time, several hours for that key to defrost in order for you to get at it. That gives you a lot of time to think about, is this what I want to do now? Of course you can melt it faster with a hair dryer or something else. That is your choice. But if you're engaging in this process, the my belief is that you don't want to use. So once you start having that urgent, then you're going to try to figure out, well, I can't access the key, what can I do instead? And that's when you start going to the gym or calling a friend or going to a meeting. You can also store the Key in a safety deposit box. That makes it easier too. What happens if you have some sort of emergency on the weekends? It could happen. And you can cut these devices off with a pair of cutters if you really need to. And you know, that's the thing. Ultimately, if you really want to engage in the behavior, you're going to find a way to do it. All of these suggestions are simply hurdles to slow down your ability to engage in that behavior and hopefully give you time to get in your wise mind and think, yeah, that's too much effort, or that's really not in my best interest. Interpersonal Strategies for Relapse Prevention have compassion for yourself. There are going to be days that are better, days that are worse, and that's okay. If you get angry with yourself or start guilting yourself, it's going to trigger the stress response and slow the recovery process. Don't do it. Be compassionate for yourself. Just like if you were recovering from a hernia operation, be compassionate with yourself. Seek regular support and be honest with that support person. This is so important in early recovery and for some people that's the first month. For other people that's the first six months. But contacting someone and being accountable to someone to twice a day, morning and evening usually is super important in the process in order to make sure that you are staying motivated and not starting to spiral, minimize, deny, justify, blah blah blah. Now this support can be from a friend that understands what you're going through, that you're willing to tell what you're going through. It doesn't have to be a therapist. It can be from a coach, it can even be from a support group. Currently, unfortunately, there are no mainstream support groups for porn addiction, only sex addiction or love and relationship addiction. So becomes a little bit more difficult because you feel like a. You feel like you don't belong. You feel like they don't get it. Therefore, I understand if you don't want to go to those particular situ types of support groups. This program, the Porn Addiction Recovery Program, offers an open support forum in the classroom and that's designed to give people who are recovering from porn addiction a safe place to discuss what's going on, to occasionally complain and get some feedback. I'm not going to co sign on your and I'm sorry your BS and I am not going to let other people co sign on it. But it is okay if you're ticked off and you're having a really bad day. It's okay to say that and or it's okay to say this Feels really unfair. Everywhere I look it seems like there are triggers and the world's conspiring against me. It can feel like that. But, and, and we can talk about it. Don't expect us to co sign and agree with you that the world's conspiring against you. But I digress. So there is support in the classroom, in the porn addiction recovery program. Reddit has a couple of forums that may be very helpful and I've been in the Reddits and participated in some of them and some of them, as I said, are very helpful. However, Reddit is a minefield and you can't access, at least not to the best of my knowledge. You can't access one Reddit group without permitting access on your, on your network, to the entire site. So a lot of people find that participating in those Reddit forums are too dangerous because they can't stick to that one thing or they're shown ads for things that are inappropriate as they're trying to get to the, to the forum that they're wanting to get to. You're going to make your own decisions. Emotional strategies recognize anger and irritability as your body's response to stress and your body's response to your hormone and neurotransmitter imbalance. It will get better. But right now it's, it's kind of like if you have, have a first degree burn and all those nerves are raw, everything seems more painful, everything seems more threatening or stressful and that's okay. Having compassion for yourself and recognizing that is the first step. Saying, okay, this feels like it's the end of the world, but let me look at the facts in context. Is this the really the end of the world or am I just really struggling to cope with life on life's terms? One set of techniques, if you, if you will, is called distress tolerance. And in this particular class we're going to talk about the mnemonic ads. Acknowledge and accept the distress. It is what it is. I'm angry, I'm irritable, I'm depressed, I'm unmotivated. Whatever it is that is causing you to feel distress is what it is. Downregulate. And that means get into your wise mind. If you are angry about it, if you are stressed out about it, you're not going to be thinking clearly. You need to get into your scientist mind. So breathe. And some people will do square breathing where you breathe for four, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four works great for them. Other people, not so much. Singing loudly can Help. Grunting can help, you know, like oh Tim the Tool Man Taylor used to do. And I'm not going to grunt, you can imagine, but anything that causes you to take a big breath in and a long breath out is going to help lower your stress response, reduce your stress response. You can also blow bubbles and that can be bubble gum. You can get, you know, Hubba Bubba or whatever it is. Haven't chewed gum in years, but chew gum. And then as you blow the bubble, it causes you to slow your breathing as you take a big breath in and then a slow exhale to try to blow a big bubble and then it pops and then you do it over again. But that actually triggers what we call your vagus nerve which will help you down regulate your stress system so you acknowledge and accept is what it is you downregulate. You may distract with alternative activities. Sometimes they're pleasurable. Alternative activities. I'm angry or I'm craving and I really want to watch porn or what could I do instead? You know, maybe I can go out to dinner with friends and order a great big old steak or something, whatever you want. But engaging in some sort of alternate activity that's pleasurable or alternate activity that's punishing. And so when you start having cravings or feeling unhappy doing something that's unpleasant, like doing 50 push ups, I don't love the punishing one, but it is an option. Guided imagery is something else you can do. Non sexual of course, but envisioning your favorite place, envisioning being out on the water fishing with your friends this weekend, that can help turn your attention to something else. And as long as your attention is going there, your energy is going there. And that means your energy and attention are not going to be going to this other thing that you were craving or obsessing about. And safety, get to it, whatever that means. If you are having the urge to use and you're alone in your apartment and you've got open wireless, you're not in a safe place. You need to get to safety. And that could mean going down to the clubhouse at the apartment complex. That could mean going out with friends, going to the gym. Hopefully you will never have an open wireless during the recovery process. But suffice it to say, sometimes things happen. Get to safety. Worst case scenario, call a friend that you know that you won't be watching porn while you're talking to them. Cognitive strategies Mindfulness Turn off your autopilot and instead of just getting up and putting one foot in front of the other day, after day, after day, turn off autopilot. Recognize in the morning how you feel, what you're thinking, what your goals are for the day. In the evening, notice how you feel, what you're thinking, what you accomplished, what you could do better tomorrow. Mindfulness in this program is project management. It is not meditation. It is becoming more aware of your needs and your resources and your goals and trying to make that happen. Wise mind means examining the consequences of your actions. So it's important to get into your wise mind when you get out of your emotional mind, your fear, your anger, where you just want to act, you're impulsive. Get into that wise mind where you can get all the facts and think about the consequences. Here are my choices. Which one you best uses my energy to help me move toward my rich and meaningful life. Be curious, but not obsessive. If you start having crate more cravings suddenly, be curious about that. Look around, see what changed, if anything. If you haven't found anything that's changed, it may just be a jolt or a surge as the remodeling starts to go back online. And that's okay. Don't get too obsessive where you start thinking, oh no, now I'm backsliding, I'm never going to recover. Blah blah blah. It's really damaging to overthink things. Engage in positive self talk, congratulate. Congratulate yourself and acknowledge the things that you're doing well. Acknowledge the things that you tried to do well even if you failed. Focus on your progress and improvements. Like a child starts walking, first they're crawling and then they pull up on something and they walk holding onto it. And then eventually they'll take a step and they'll fall down and they'll get up and eventually they'll take two or three steps before they fall down and then they get up. They do that a while and down the road somewhere they start walking. Recovery is the same process. You're going to take a few steps and you're going to fall on your bum. That doesn't mean it's a relapse. It just means you may hit a sticking point or you may have a bad day. That's okay. Focus on your progress and improvements, not the fact that you're not there fast enough. Don't should yourself remove that word from your vocabulary. If you notice you're saying I should feel better or I should be doing this now, I will or I won't. I do or I don't. I feel this way. Okay, that's. It's Not I shouldn't feel differently. I feel how I feel. I'm going to the gym. I will go to the gym. Not I should go to the gym. That's very non committal commit. Set small achievable goals. Don't set goals in early recovery. Like I'll never use porn again and I will have a relationship in six months. No, no, that's, that's not realistic and that's not small. It's important to set daily goals in early recovery. Going an entire day without using porn, even if you thought about it going without using, it's a huge milestone. So set those small achievable goals and recognize them. Unhook from the craving, the thought or the feeling. If you start having this craving, like I have to watch porn. No, you're having the feeling that you have to watch porn or the thought that you have to watch porn, but you don't have to. There's very little you actually have to do. So if you have this feeling or this thought, are you going to do with it? Embrace the and I can be irritable and go to my kids soccer game. I can be tired and go out with my friends. Environmental strategies. Remember that for people who are addicted to porn, anticipation causes a stronger dopamine release than orgasm in, in many people. So put a nanny app on your phone. That way if you start going to porn sites or adult sites, it alerts somebody else. Somebody else is going to hold you accountable. It's not just that it blocks it, but it alerts your sponsor or your friend. Another thing that I found recently playing games on my own phone and some of the ads they've been serving serving me have been wholly inappropriate and would be extraordinarily triggering for somebody with porn addiction. So you may have to forego playing apps, playing with apps on your phone, unless you can figure out a way to selectively block ads. Avoid connected digital devices as much as possible. And what I mean is digital devices that are connected to an open wireless account where you can access, even if you've got a nanny app, if you can access some of those sites, it can be really tempting. And that temptation causes stress and that stress slows down the recovery process. Block triggering sites including social media, YouTube and Twitch. I know some people are going, but Twitch, well, we all have to make choices. And if you can handle Twitch, fine. But I have seen that there is a fair amount of triggering material on Twitch as well. Have a friend change the password to your Internet once you have your firewalls and safeguards in place and they know the password but you don't. To be extra safe, in case you have a falling out with them, have them write the password down on a piece of paper and put it in your safe deposit box that you can't access, you know, easily. Yes, you could look at it. But again, ultimately you've got to make some choices and be responsible for some of your own choices. Remove sensory triggers in your home, car or office. If there are certain smells or sights, take them down, you know, take down the, the nudie calendar, take down whatever, and then add competing stimuli for unavoidable triggers. Like I mentioned before, your computer, most of us have to be on the computer at least part of the day. So how can you make that less triggering? Well, you can have the desktop picture be a picture of your mom that's a mood killer right there or, or your grandma or Jesus or something that you look at it and you go, yeah, no, not gonna go to the porn site right now. Change your bedtime routine. If you are used to going to bed at 10 o' clock and watching porn from 10 to 12, in order to get sleepy, you're going to need to change your bedtime routine. You may need to even start sleeping somewhere else, at least temporarily, whether it's in another room in your house or even in the living room. Some people in early recovery find their bedroom too triggering because that's where they watch their porn. Move the computer to the living room, assuming you've got roommates. And if you don't have roommates, keep the blinds open during, when you're, when you're awake, even at night, so people can see in. And then you're going to be hopefully less likely to watch porn and engage in edging and masturbation. Early relapse prevention is about preparing to begin the recovery process. You'll be developing tools to improve your distress tolerance. Resist using again. Create a safer, less triggering environment. Recondition stimuli, they're associated with pleasure and help your body start to heal.